


like the sun and the moon, i will circle you 'til you bloom

by seeingrightly



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-18
Updated: 2010-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But Eames can’t play his part, make small talk with the driver and ask Arthur out for a drink he’ll say no to, because Arthur’s suit is still clinging everywhere. His hair is soft and damp, falling onto his forehead, and raindrops cling to his skin and his eyelashes like dew."</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the sun and the moon, i will circle you 'til you bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by fishpots @ lj. Title lyric from Passion Pit's "Folds in Your Hands".

“We’ll share a cab,” Eames says before he can stop himself.

They’re on the sidewalk, he and Arthur, outside of the run-down office building they’d dragged their last mark to, and it’s pouring. Arthur’s sleek gray suit is even more skintight than usual, heavy and clinging when he moves, and Eames tries not to stare, he really does, as Arthur steps to the edge of the curb and raises his hand to hail a taxi.

He’s honestly not sure if Arthur even heard him over the wind and the general commotion of the New York City street, but then Arthur pulls open the door of the taxi that rolls up and looks over his shoulder, brow furrowed as raindrops pelt his face, and Eames gets in after him.

Arthur slides across the back seat with a squeak of wet trousers on vinyl and Eames settles in, shutting the door behind him. The rain is a metronome on the roof, the wind providing percussion. Arthur gives the driver the address of his hotel, so Eames gives his next. They’ve been staying, for the past month, maybe ten minutes away from one another, in hotels of essentially the same quality and design and expense.

They’ve been mirroring one another like this, for all the quick jobs Cobb has reeled them in for. Arthur practically lives in Cobb’s backyard still but Eames has been back and forth, to Dublin for a month of relaxation before Cobb calls him up, to Madrid for a few weeks to take care of a quick job until Cobb needs him for a better one. Every time he flies straight to wherever they’re meeting up, joining Cobb and probably Ariadne and maybe Yusuf and always, always Arthur.

And it’s the same every time, with the banter and the completion of their comparatively simple task and their sharing a cab at the end of most days. But then they split up, Arthur heading off into a hotel that’s practically the same damn thing as what Eames is staying at, and Eames just sits there and lets himself be taken away in the back of the cab.

This job, this amateur extraction they’ve just completed, was practically a joke in principle. They’d barely needed a forger at all, probably could have just had Cobb extract the information, but he’s taking it easy still, opting for research rather than actually venturing into dreams more times than not. So Eames had spent a month in the city with the team, and the preparation had been fairly relaxed, normal.

And this, this should be normal and familiar, the space between them in the back seat of the cab, Arthur gazing out the window, looking almost calm at the tail-end of a job completed successfully. But Eames can’t play his part, make small talk with the driver and ask Arthur out for a drink he’ll say no to, because Arthur’s suit is still clinging _everywhere_. His hair is soft and damp, falling onto his forehead, and raindrops cling to his skin and his eyelashes like dew.

Eames can’t play his part right now. He can’t stop staring.

So naturally Arthur would turn to look at him. He’s almost smiling. It’s that look he gets when he’s solved one of those questions that’s been plaguing him for ages. Half the time Eames suspects he’s got a game of Sudoku hidden away within the files of research spread across his desk.

“You’re quiet,” he says, prompting.

“And you seem to be enjoying that,” Eames replies curtly, smirking.

“It’s not a pleasure I’m allowed often,” Arthur agrees, and he’s still looking at Eames and his words aren’t harsh at all, and this is not normal.

“So where do you think you’re going next?” Eames asks. It’s always rhetorical and they both know it.

“Home.” Arthur offers him a shrug, at least, tight under his layers of wet clothing. They know he means the apartment in the town where Cobb and his kids live, the one he’s had since Mal lived there too. Eames huffs out a laugh. If he said he was going home, Arthur wouldn’t know where he was headed, and in all honestly, neither would Eames.

“I’m thinking of heading somewhere dry,” Eames says lightly, rapping his knuckles against the window. Droplets race down the panel, crisscrossing, and it’s hard to see the car in the next lane.

The dream had taken place in the mark’s local YMCA, at the pool. Arthur had played lifeguard, sitting up in the white chair and wearing red shorts, pushing his hair out of his face as he surveyed the pool, eyes skimming past the projections inhabiting his dream. Eames forged the pretty young thing who usually drew the mark’s attention during his weekly visits to the pool. He’d flirted with the middle-aged man, as he – she – sat on the rim of the deep end wearing a skimpy bikini. He built up to it, eventually pressing him for information about the flashy new car he’s been driving to and from the Y, the amount of money he’s come into.

And then he asked about the mark’s recently deceased wife.

What happened wasn’t Eames’ fault, not really. He did what he was supposed to do. It wasn’t his fault the projections had gone wild, defensive – all the proof they needed to convince the mark’s son that his father was responsible for the death.

But the reaction was instantaneous, projections swarming in behind the mark, and Arthur had shouted to him, “Eames, get out of there,” like the forger wasn’t disguised as an innocent college student hanging out beside a pool, and like Arthur wasn’t throwing his own cover to shit by doing it, and like it actually mattered what happened to them one level down.

“Arthur, you ass,” he’d shouted in that whiny, high-pitched voice. Eames had scrambled away from the edge of the pool just in time to see half of the projections take out that white chair, to see Arthur fall into the water, fall to their hands. And the rest of the projections had turned back to Eames as the world began to shake around them, ceiling tiles slicing through the water, and all Eames had been able to look at was Arthur’s body floating face-down, tiles bouncing off his back.

It was quiet when Eames woke up, hands shaking and breath coming a little too quick. Arthur was sitting in the lawn chair next to him, leaning over the side with his elbows on his knees, palms clasped under his chin. Waiting with that calculating look on his face, waiting for Eames.

“Cobb and Ariadne are bringing the mark home to his son. We can leave. The job’s done.” His voice was smooth as ever, but he still had that look on his face, like he was just about to slide into place the last few squares on a Rubix cube.

Minutes later, before Eames could fully shake off the feeling of water rushing into his ears and up his nose, they were both drenched through again.

“You haven’t asked me to have a drink yet,” Arthur says.

Eames looks away from the indistinct shapes outside the window and smiles. He knows it doesn’t look forced, because he’s good at his job.

“You haven’t said yes yet, darling,” he counters easily.

They arrive at Arthur’s hotel, and he pulls out his wallet, shelling out cash. He turns to his door, but Eames is closer to the sidewalk.

“Don’t,” he says when Arthur turns to get out into the middle of a busy street, the asshole.

“You’re not going out into the rain for no reason,” Arthur begins, but Eames already has, holding the door open and grinning in at Arthur expectantly. By the time Arthur is standing in front of him, his clothes are heavy and sopping already.

“You’re an ass,” Arthur practically has to shout. His eyes are almost closed against the rain, head tilted at an awkward angle and too close to Eames’.

“And yet,” Eames replies, raising his eyebrows.

“And yet,” Arthur agrees, and something in him seems to soften, and maybe Eames has been waiting for that without even knowing it.

Eames reaches up, grasping the back of Arthur’s neck and pulling him roughly forward and pressing their lips firmly together. Arthur freezes for a split second before he lurches into motion, eagerly kissing back, sliding an arm around Eames’ waist and throwing the other over his shoulder and around his back to pull him closer. Eames pulls away for a moment, blinking raindrops away, before he presses a series of chaste kisses to Arthur’s mouth, sliding the hand at his neck up to cup his face gently and grasping at Arthur’s hip with the other. Arthur somehow pulls Eames even closer, soaked-through button-ups hardly a barrier between warmer bodies. Arthur runs his tongue along the slit of Eames’ mouth and it’s open before he’s done, and as Arthur explores Eames lets out a tiny little noise barely audible over the rain. He shifts his hand and runs it through Arthur’s hair, loose and curling, and Arthur fucking _melts_ , the lines of his body going languid against Eames. Finally, Eames needs to breathe, and he pulls back, just barely, heaving. Arthur remains just as close, nudging the tip of his nose against Eames’, his whole face crinkling in one of those full-force, dimpled, genuine smiles he rarely lets loose.

Eames can’t help himself. He leans in and kisses the wrinkled-up spot next to Arthur’s eye, then the other, and Arthur laughs a little, wrapping both arms firmly around his waist and linking his hands, resting them just above dangerous territory. Eames runs his hand through Arthur’s hair again and is met with the same reaction, but this time Arthur presses his face into the side of Eames’ neck and lets out a little shuddering breath against the hollow of his throat. Arthur can probably feel the chills that course through Eames’ body as a result. Eames kisses the exposed side of Arthur’s neck and then pulls back a little, trying to look at him.

When Arthur talks, he’s practically shouting in Eames’ face, but it doesn’t matter.

“Want to head somewhere dry?” he asks, somehow keeping a straight face as he thumbs over his shoulder toward the hotel.

Eames catches Arthur’s lower lip between his teeth and tugs just a little, smiling around it.

“I suspect you’ll lose the pleasure of my actually being quiet for once,” Eames warns him.

“I suspect I won’t actually give a fuck,” Arthur replies swiftly, shutting the door to the cab, which is still waiting for Eames. It pulls away, and that’s that.

Eames lets out an honest-to-God little growl and kisses him roughly, but Arthur slides out of his grasp, turning away and marching towards the building, not bothering to look back once. Eames smirks and shakes his head before jogging to catch up, sliding one hand down Arthur’s back to rest a little lower than his waist.

Their clothes are no less wet when Arthur finally gets the door to his room open. When Eames slides his shoes off water actually pools and sinks into the carpet. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so infuriating, how unwilling their clothes are to be removed from chilled skin. Eames sheds them both of their jackets and his fingers slide across the buttons of Arthur’s waistcoat for a truly frustrating amount of time before they relent and they’re both laughing at how ridiculous this all is. Arthur literally peels Eames’ shirt away like a second skin, kissing down his chest, chasing droplets with his tongue. Eames has to tug and tug to get Arthur’s unfairly tight pants all the way off. It’s a ludicrous struggle and there are drenched, ruined articles of clothing strewn across the room and in the morning Arthur will probably lament the destruction of his suit.

The bed is warm and dry, though that will change shortly, and they climb under the covers, shivering and laughing, and they’ll probably both be sick tomorrow, and Eames suspects he won’t actually care as Arthur pulls him in close and kisses him like he’s never given a fuck about anything else.


End file.
